How to Bust Through a Personal Myth

'The Present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell'Zora Neale Hurston (American Anthropologist 1891-1960)

A question to ponder...

Have you been thinking about acting upon a secret passion or a spark of an idea for years? What secret thought or plan of action do you have that you want to explore in 2018? Don't let it escape you this year...take a leap of faith... enrol in that program, join that group, take that class....trust yourself....follow your heart and bust a myth you held true about yourself!

Myth Busting at it's Best and Learning from Others

With the start of a New Year comes the exciting energy of new and renewed potential and possibility. This is a story about a personal myth I held onto for over 20 years, and I want to share it with you so that you don't make the same mistake as I made. Don't wait as long as I did to discover a new and exciting way to create and live a life of adventure and curiosity.

Here is a short story of my very first day of art class. After 20 years of pondering and thinking about going to art school, I finally let go of an 'old' story I had believed in for too long and with quiet determination I enrolled at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. I am living proof that it is never too late to take a step toward a dream!

To say I was nervous was an understatement. I was excited to have finally given myself permission to explore a deep dream to paint and to go to an art school with scheduled classes and weekly homework assignments. Then came the moment of truth. The time to pull out new brushes and paints and begin the process of doing....yikes...this is where high anxiety set in for me, the onset of sweaty palms and a nervousness I’d never known before. Our class assignment was to paint an apple. No problem right? Wrong! We were encouraged to start with a circular shape, well, now I was hyperventilating....a circle! I thought, Oh Lordy, I cannot draw a perfect circle I thought to myself, mine are usually all wobbly and always totally imperfect. I don't have a steady hand at the best of times and with the anxiety I am feeling, my hand will shake more uncontrollably and I am then going to look like a fool, my circle is going to be the ugliest looking circle in the whole class and for sure my apple won't really look like an apple!

At this point, I was seriously thinking about how I could elegantly or not, excuse myself from class. I stood in front of my blank art paper and I'm sure I looked like a deer in headlights. In that moment, in the eye of an anxiety storm, a strange calmness came over me and I chose 'fight' over 'flight' so-to-speak - I took a deep breath in....'no judgement...no judgment'. I kept repeating these words to myself as my vision narrowed and all went silent in my head and I put my very first tentative brush strokes onto paper and began to paint my first circular shape in my very first University art class. A few hours later something resembling an apple appeared.

As a gift to myself for making it through my very first University art class, I immortalized my wobbly, wonky, imperfect apple painting and made it museum-worthy. This gave me the encouragement to continue on with art classes and to finally complete a 4-year Continuing Education Program at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Learning to love and accept your oddities is certainly a challenge, but one in which makes you unique and demonstrates how pushing through self-imposed boundaries is a way to appreciate another side of yourself that you never thought was possible before....What myth will you bust this year?

Proudly displaying or even immortalizing one's work sets you up on a powerful path to continue to practice and learn your new creative discovery.

Turning a long time myth of believing I could not draw or paint perfectly or representationally has now turned into a new found art career and direction including both painting and photography in my preferred abstract style. With this new found and developing skill set I can now incorporate it into my interior design business. You just never know where your new found interest, creative idea or passion could take you! Au courage!

Your Turn

Tell me your story. When did you experience something that really scared you the first time you tried it but with courage you were able to push through that fear and now you are proud that you did and have a new level of confidence to keep going and/or try other new things in life. Where did that lead you? I would love to hear about it.